Americas

Visitors at Tunnel View, like Kaori Nishimura and Eriko Kuboi from Japan, pose in front of Half Dome, center facing, during the reopening of Yosemite National Park, Calif., Oct. 17, 2013.

With the Lincoln Memorial in the distance, a worker cleans the fountain at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2013.

Pres. Barack Obama, speaking in Washington, D.C., is seen on a screen on the floor of the N.Y. Stock Exchange, Oct. 17, 2013. Obama says the government shutdown "inflicted unnecessary damage" to the U.S. economy.

National Park Service employees remove barricades from the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013.

Richard Doerner, Museum Specialist for the U.S. Senate Commission on Art, listens to the Ohio Clock as he restarts it outside the Senate chamber on Capitol Hill, Oct. 17, 2013 in Washington. The clock stopped during the 16-day government shutdown because the workers that care for the clock were furloughed.

Visitors are led on an official tour, which had been suspended during the 16-day government shutdown, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2013.

With the Washington Monument in the distance, Park Service police officers stand on duty at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Oct. 17, 2013.

People form a tour group at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2013.

National Park Service Ranger Wendy Solis welcomes visitors to Alcatraz Island, Oct. 17, 2013, after it reopened following a partial government shutdown, in San Francisco, California.

Visitors entered the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum after it reopened, in Washington, D.C., Oct. 17, 2013.

Visitors to the U.S.S. Constitution, the oldest ship in the United States Navy, line up and walk up the gang plank to the top deck for a tour in Boston, Massachusetts, Oct. 17, 2013.

U.S. shutdown ends: parks, museums and monuments reopen

Published October 18, 2013

Barriers went down at federal memorials, National Park Service sites, as well as the Smithsonian Institution's network of popular museums and thousands of furloughed federal workers returned to work across the country October 17, 2013 after 16 days off the job due to the partial government shutdown.